Friday, 04 November 2005

The ongoing campaign of infrastructure disruption in Iraq (oil, gas, electricity, water, etc.) brings up an important question on strategy: will global guerrillas strive for a complete shut down of Iraq's infrastructure or do they achieve more through a partial shut down? Lawrence of Arabia provides some insight into this.

Lawrence's guerrilla campaign (for more on this read the fantastic book on Lawrence's strategy by Liddell Hart) against the Ottoman Turks was focused on the disruption the Turkish rail system. However, his approach did not seek the total collapse of the rail system. In Lawrence's view, it was more important to control the rate of flow on the rail system than to shut it down entirely. If he had shut down the rail system, the Turkish troops that depended on it for supplies would have been withdrawn (and would have been used to reinforce the front against the Brits in Sinai/Palestine). In contrast, by restricting its flow, the Turkish troops remained in place but didn't have the resources to do anything but remain in their garrisons. In essence, Lawrence used disruption to produce two desired effects (for more on this read the brief on effects-based operations): the paralysis of a large segment of the Turkish army and complete freedom of movement in 99% of Arabia.

A similar logic applies to the effects-based operations in motion in Iraq today. Attacks by Iraq's global guerrillas keep Iraq's infrastructure below what is needed to adequately provide for the population (see State Failure 101 for more). Additionally, there appears to be evidence that these attacks have moved into maintenance mode -- just enough disruption to maintain current levels of insufficient output although complete collapse is within their means. This makes sense if the effects desired are: an extremely weak Iraqi state and the withdrawal of a chastened US. Here's why partial disruption makes this possible (I am going to work on refining these over the next couple of days):

Complete collapse would create total war (via a bloody civil war). A complete urban/country takedown would prompt the state to launch a total war. This is a type of warfare that global guerrillas are not prepared or able to fight (in contrast, states are well suited to this). By keeping the level of damage below what would be considered fatal to the state, total war is avoided.

Partial disruption delegitimizes the state (and the American occupation). Partial paralysis creates a situation where the government is responsible for failures. Guerrilla attacks are lumped in with failures in system management and blamed on the state. This decrease in state legitimacy increases the need for people to depend on primary loyalties rather than the state for solutions. Fragmentation = goodness.

Partial disruption maximizes economic attrition. Partial disruption provides the illusion that the situation is manageable. As a result, both Iraq and the US continue to fight this war on the margins of a peacetime financial agenda. However, this peacetime budget is expensive and the Iraqi state is unable to pay for these programs -- disruption has stalled growth in both export and tax revenues. Additionally, the current situation continues to spur the US to pour funds it can't afford into reconstruction (complete failure would likely halt inflows). For US projects, this disruption "tax" can be 60% of total project costs. At this level of inefficiency, nothing gets done.

Saturday, 27 August 2005

The perpetual collapse of Iraq brings up an important philosophical debate. Is the state an ascendent or descendent institution? Let's dive into this:

If the state (and the state system in aggregate) is still a thriving institution, historical forces will conspire to drive the creation of states. States will spontaneously re-emerge if disrupted. Further, actions taken (read: invasions and regime change) against states will result in temporary chaos followed by easy and rapid stability. If the state system is in decline (ala Martin van Creveld), states will find it increasingly difficult to maintain financial viability, deliver critical services to citizens, control their borders and economy, and maintain a monopoly on violence. States that are disrupted will find it difficult, if not impossible, to re-establish order and functionality. Historical forces will conspire to defeat any attempt at reforming the order of the state.

The evidence seems to point to the latter argument. States are increasingly finding themselves in perpetual disruption or complete failure. One driver of this is globalization. Globalization has diminished state power across the board ("it melts the map"). So, if we want to build a peaceful (and profitable) system that obeys a new rule set (to borrow a phrase from Thomas Barnett), the limits of state power must be a critical factor in its development. This new revised view might be appropriately called the Humpty Dumpty principle of state failure.

Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall,
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall;
All the King's horses and all the King's men,
Couldn't put Humpty together again.

Tuesday, 07 June 2005

“Gulf lesson one is the value of air power… (it) was right on target from day one… Our air strikes were the most effective, yet humane, in the history of warfare.”

President George Bush, 29 May 1991

The most important lesson of the second Gulf war is that a small group of guerrillas, armed with the right strategy, can keep a nation in perpetual failure.

John Robb

Iraq’s Baathists did learn lessons from the first Gulf war that altered their strategy for the second -- this is another demonstration that war is a contest of minds and to a lesser extent merely a clash of weaponry and formations on the field of battle.

1991’s Gulf War taught the Iraqi leadership that its military wasn’t a match for the US war machine. It would lose quickly and badly. Secondly, and less obviously, the first Gulf War taught the Iraqi leadership the power of systems disruption. The US air campaign during the first Gulf War was the first of its kind -- it completely shut down the functions of a semi-modern nation-state. For example:

Oil and gasoline. 500 sorties and 1,200 tons of bombs were used to shut down Iraq’s oil and refining system. 80% of its refining capacity was directly impacted. The remaining 20% was preventatively closed to avoid damage. Iraq was left only with those fuel reserves produced before the war.

Electricity. Attacks against Iraqi power production and switching facilities first shut down its effective use and then collapsed the entire system. This shutdown cascaded throughout the country as systems reliant on the national grid were forced to depend on unreliable ad hoc power generation.

Telecommunications. The national telephone system was attacked on an ongoing basis. The ability to rapidly repair the network, its built-in redundancy, and numerous difficult to destroy wireless nodes forced the campaign’s planners into a series of repeated attacks to cause the needed disruption.

Transportation. Numerous bridges, railroads, and roadways were interdicted to prevent the transportation of supplies and the normal functioning of the economy. Transportation connections from Baghdad to southeastern sections Iraq were successfully severed.

At the point when the first coalition ground forces entered Iraq (and Kuwait), Iraq was the hollow husk of a nation-state. All of its vital systems, necessary to support its status as a state let alone a state at war, were broken. As President Bush (see quote) and the entire world noted, the air campaign was devastatingly effective. However, this analysis misses the point. It wasn’t the air power that was so effective; it was systems disruption that accomplished the task. The devastation of Iraq’s infrastructure won the war before the ground invasion confirmed the process. The important thing to understand is that method of accomplishing this systemic collapse, air power, was coincidental to the outcome.

Friday, 22 October 2004

The long history of warfare is dominated by military entrepreneurs. That dominance was overturned only recently (within an historical context) with the rise of the nation-state and its ideologically motivated armies. However, the trend is going in the other direction, and quickly. Military entrepreneurship is again on the rise. We can see the adoption of military entrepreneurs by the coalition in Iraq. Private military companies (PMCs) field the second largest military force in Iraq, after the US -- the UK is a distant third.

This shift towards military entrepreneurship is even more pronounced in the insurgency in Iraq. Almost all of the guerrillas we are currently fighting were formed through this process. This should come as no surprise to readers of history (and particularly readers of this author, since it appeared here first). Arab warfare, until late in this century, was driven entirely by entrepreneurship. For example: Lawrence of Arabia, the father of modern guerrilla warfare, used combinations of direct payments and the promise of loot to build his forces. Faith played a major part, but it was almost always secondary.

Recent reports confirm from the US military analysts confirm the financial nature of the open sourcebazaar in Iraq:

"Unlimited amounts" of violence capital for guerrilla entrepreneurs is flowing into Iraq from ex-Baathists, relatives of Saddam Hussein, Saudi sources, and bin Laden. Given global guerrilla ROIs (returns on investment) of up to 100,000 x, this should be cause for alarm.

Loot from convoy hijackings, theft of oil through bunkering, and ransoms play a major part of the motivation for attacks. Fully 80% of the attacks fall into this category.

A granular competitive market. There are over 50 guerrilla groups active in Iraq. The sheer diversity of the effort indicates a process that is very similar to historical patterns of Arab warfare.

Price schedules for attacks. The going rate for placing an IED is $100-$300 (more for an RPG attack).

A New Dynamic
The financial dynamic we see in action in Iraq is a hallmark of global guerrilla warfare. It also creates its own dynamic. The destruction of the pillars of globalization through attacks on systems (both infrastructure and markets) serve to keep Iraq a failed state. As a failed state, Iraq is unable to provide economic alternatives to the insurgency. Further, even though Iraq is a failed state, it is awash in money. Fortunes will be made through the perpetuation of its chaos (as we see with the Narco warlords in Afghanistan, who combined generate $2.5 billion a year in revenue).

Given this trend line, we will likely see more advanced forms of this in the future, particularly market-derived financing. Guerrilla entrepreneurs will use prior knowledge of attacks to generate revenue from global financial markets (NOTE: this fits the strategy of fourth generation warfare -- it turns the strength of an enemy into a weakness). These efforts will include:

Attacks on oil infrastructure. Global guerrilla methods make it possible for the rise of a "Shadow OPEC" and all the financial leverage that entails.

Taking states hostage.Global financial markets control the world. States exist to compete within them (the US does too, but it often doesn't acknowledge the fact). If a state underpreforms it is harshly punished regardless of the reasons. It is likely we will see a nation state targeted/threatened with infrastructure disruption unless they make a large ransom payment. States are willing to pay (the recent payment by Italy for the release of hostages is an example). Many aren't, but after some well orchestrated examples, they will likely to reverse that stance.

Tuesday, 18 May 2004

Swarming tactics have been used successfully in wars throughout history by a variety of organizations from the tribal Parthians (horse archers) to 20th century Germans (U-boats). Global guerrillas (next generation terrorists) will likely use swarming tactics as part of their doctrine. This technique, in combination with new market-based financing techniques is what's called a killer combo.

Definition.
A good place to start an analysis of swarming is Sean Edwards' "Swarming on the Battlefield (PDF downloads). Here's his excellent definition of swarming: a primary maneuver that results in an attack from multiple directions (all points on the compass) by 5 or more (semi) autonomous units on a single target/unit.

Types.
Swarming is typically divided into two types:
Massed swarming -- Swarmers begin as a massed unit. They break apart and then swarm on target.
Dispersed swarming -- Units are dispersed (geographically) from the start. Once a target is identified, they converge to attack. This is the most difficult of the two types of swarming to defend against since the attacker never presents a massed target.

Effectiveness.
Historically, swarming is successful only when it scores high in the following areas:

Elusiveness -- either through mobility or concealment.

Long range firepower -- standoff capability.

Superior situational awareness -- having more information about the enemy than they have about you.

Swarming contra infrastructure systems: guerre de course
Given this background, how will global guerrillas use swarming? First, the target for global guerrillas won't be isolated military units but rather urban infrastructure systems. The objective of these attacks will be damage that results in economic attrition. Let's examine how global guerrilla's will leverage swarming tactics to accomplish this objective.

The effectiveness of Global Guerrilla swarmers.Global guerrilla swarmers will maintain their effectiveness across the vital swarming attributes in the following ways:

Elusiveness. Global guerrillas attain concealment through anonymity in large urban environments. Reliance on the local population isn't necessary. High degrees of mobility are accomplished by leveraging public transportation networks.

Superior situational awareness. Open source intelligence is easy to accomplish (via the Internet, the media, and other sources). Further, encrypted global communications, via the Internet, enables global intelligence sharing information sharing. The small size of operational cells limits the potential of discovery and counter-guerrilla intelligence development.

Standoff attacks. Like many historical swarming attacks, global guerrillas will have significant standoff firepower potential -- the ability to attack from a distance. However, this firepower isn't a traditional weapon, rather, its the global guerrilla's ability to use attacks on infrastructure to impact downstream systems miles (perhaps hundreds of miles) distant. Attacks will be rotated among infrastructures in a modern variant of horse archer tactics.

How global guerrilla swarmers will surmount traditional limits to operations.Historically, swarmers have been limited by terrain, logistics, and communications. Global guerrillas will not be constrained by these limits. This makes global guerrilla swarming unique to history as can be seen in the attached 2x2 matrix. The upshot is that global guerrillas will be able to conduct dispersed swarming maneuvers on the operational level. Here's how global guerrillas will surmount the traditional limits on swarming:

Logistics requirements can be met via open economic transactions and don't require population support. The requirements for operations are relatively limited (damage to infrastructure requires low-tech tools). Additionally, the small size of the cells (~5 people) requires little housing/food/etc and in most cases would fall well below the threshold of detection.

Real-time, anonymous, wireless communications (both data and voice -- VoIP, e-mail, Web, cellphones, etc.) enable global guerrillas to coordinate dispersed operations on the operational level. Tactical operations will be of a conventional type, typically by a single unit or individual.

Saturday, 08 May 2004

Col. John Boyd (he died in 1997) is considered one of America's best military thinkers. His thinking dramatically influenced the plan of attack in the first gulf war. Boyd's thinking also serves as a good basis for a deeper understanding 4GW (fourth generation warfare).

Grand strategy, according to Boyd, is a quest to isolate your enemy's (a nation-state or a global terrorist network) thinking processes from connections to the external/reference environment. This process of isolation is essentially the imposition of insanity on a group. To wit: any organism that operates without reference to external stimuli (the real world), falls into a destructive cycle of false internal dialogues. These corrupt internal dialogues eventually cause dissolution and defeat.

The dynamic of Boyd's grand strategy is to isolate your enemy across three essential vectors (physical, mental, and moral), while at the same time improving your connectivity across those same vectors. Here's more detail:

Physical isolation is accomplished by severing communications both to the outside world (ie. allies) and internal audiences (ie. between branches of command and between the command organization and its supporters).

Mental isolation is done through the introduction of ambiguous information, novel situations, and by operating at a tempo an enemy cannot keep up with. A lack of solid information impedes decision making.

Moral isolation is achieved when an enemy improves its well being at the expense of others (allies) or violates rules of behavior they profess to uphold (standards of conduct). Moral rules are a very important reference point in times of uncertainty. When these are violated, it is very hard to recover.

Our progress so far
When we evaluate our progress in the war on terrorism based on Boyd's measures of isolation, the following is seen:

Physical isolation. America has been physically isolated from many of its allies due to its rush to war in Iraq. It also has demonstated (via the slow process by which news of Abu Ghraib reached the President and Congress) that internal communications have been disrupted. The destruction of al Qaeda's training camps and visible communications systems have resulted in a degree of isolation. However, the network-based organizational structure of al Qaeda and its ability to manipulate the media to send messages to supporters has mitigated this effort.

Mental isolation. The rapid emergence of new threats (al Sadr, al Zarqawi, and Fallujah) and the myriad of geographically dispersed attacks that require response (from Spain to Saudi Arabia -- from Basra to Mosel) have served to isolate the US on the mental plane. It is also very difficult, due to ambiguity of information, to determine who the enemy is (this is true in Iraq and across the world from Pakistan to Saudi Arabia). The bulk of the early effort to continuously attack al Qaeda has subsided as the US concentrates on Iraq -- our early gains have been squandered.

Moral isolation. The excesses at the Abu Ghraib prison demonstrate a classic violation of moral codes of conduct. The evidence indicates that the US intentionally (in that there was a climate of urgency that permitted it) violated these rules due to desire to gain information needed to fight guerrilla groups in Iraq. Another example of moral isolation is America's insistance on the right to self-defense, at the expense of the rest of the world. There has not been any evidence that al Qaeda sponsored operations have drastically violated any internal moral codes. However, the proliferation of groups associated with al Qaeda have resulted in attacks (for example: attacks on Shiites in Pakistan and Iraq that are against al Qaeda policy) may serve to isolate al Qaeda if their actions are adopted by the main organization.

A vision statement for this conflict
From this analysis it is clear that the US is, as the result of this war, more isolated than our enemy. However, Boyd suggests that the best corrective action is for the US to articulate a grand unifying vision for this war. A "with us or against us" approach and unilateral military action is not productive (it drives isolation). A better vision statement (we should have a contest for this):

The United States will commit all of the resources at its disposal to help nations everywhere preserve those values that we all hold as vital to our future success."

4GW (fourth generation wafare) is the term used by military thinkers to describe conflict at the end of the 20th century. In general, 4GW is an extremely effective method of warfare that the US and its allies will find very difficult to defeat (a slow burn, rather than complete eradication, may be the best possible outcome). I have outlined the basics of 4GW warfare below to enhance your understanding of the term.

Definition4GW can be defined as a method of warfare that uses the following to achieve a moral victory:

Undermines enemy strengths (this may seem obvious, but most of modern warfare has involved direct attacks on enemy strengths -- find the enemy army and destroy it).

Networked -- new organizational types made possible by improvements in technology are much better at learning, surviving, and acting.

Winning a 4GW conflictVictory in 4GW warfare is won in the moral sphere. The aim of 4GW is to destroy the moral bonds that allows the organic whole to exist -- cohesion. This is done by reinforcing the following (according to Boyd):

Wednesday, 05 May 2004

In all cases of radical improvements in warfare, the actual improvement is made much more through new thinking on how to fight than from innovations in weaponry. These innovations in theory typically don't occur via a linear process of evolution but rather through rapid breakthroughs. A breakthrough of this type was made by the German General Heinz Guderian. In the early 1930’s he read the innovative theories of armored warfare written by Liddell Hart and JFC Fuller as was convinced they represented a radical change in how war can be fought -- as opposed to the stalemate of defense typified by WWI. In secret he practiced the methods he learned with cardboard tanks. Years later, he rode real tanks in a Blitzkrieg across France in 1940 with devastating effect.

Our current situation is characterized by a similar stalemate of defense. America and Israel are fighting a bloody war of attrition with terrorists with neither side able to achieve a decisive result. To trace the development of this new form of warfare, it is necessary to examine the how armored warfare achieved its success. There are strong similarities between it and what is coming.

The success of Blitzkrieg rests on a brilliant insight: modern militaries are heavily reliant on extremely large and ponderous logistics and communication systems. The relationship between fighting men and the people that support them is called the tooth-to-tale ratio. That ratio has been growing at a furious rate over the last century -- it is currently at high of 10 support people for every “trigger-puller.” The objective in maneuver-based armored combat (Blitzkrieg) is to separate the forward deployed fighting forces from their logistics and command system by driving to the rear of the enemy. Given the ongoing and immediate needs of the mass of forward deployed soldiers for copious supplies and strict command/control, the interruption caused by armored forces operating in rear areas rapidly results in a collapse along forward deployed line, pell-mell retreat, and capture.

In this new substrate (nation-states vs. non-state networks within a global, information economy), global guerrillas will use a similar insight to win decisive battles. In this context, the conventional armies of nation-states aren't the target, a nation-state's economic and societal infrastructure is. Specifically, our large urbanized population centers are reliant on a complex set of relatively automated infrastructures. The operational objective of the global guerrilla warfare will be to separate a large urban population from its infrastructure and take advantage of the collapse and chaos that results. Global guerrilla operations will rapidly maneuver to or swarm on an urban center's infrastructure, attack it as quickly as possible at critical junctures to cause systemic collapse, continue the attacks as long as practicable, and disappear until the next operation.

Saturday, 01 May 2004

Failed states serve as a catalyst to non-state terrorist networks. They provide locations for critical face-to-face meetings/training that create the lifelong bonds of trust necessary for the smooth operation of covert networks (see, "Mapping Terrorist Networks" for more). They are also excellent conduits for transnational crime (drug and human trafficking primarily) that fund ongoing operations. However, an exact definition of what a failed state is and how they become failed states is fuzzy. As part of the CIA's National Intelligence Council's 2020 project, Robert Rotberg submits a paper, "Nation-State Failure: A Recurring Problem" (PDF) which provides more definition to the debate.

Delivering the goods
Nation-state success can be measured by its ability to deliver political goods. Here is his hierarchy of political goods:

Security. The is the state's primary function. It provides a framework through which all other political goods can be delivered.

Law. A system of codes and proceedures which regulate the interactions of the population and sets the standards for conduct.

Medical and Health care.

Schools and Educational Instruction.

Critical infrastructure.

A money and banking system.

A business environment.

A forum for civil society.

A method of regulating environmental commons.

A taxonomy of success and failure
He proposes the following more descriptive taxonomy of the health of states (based on their ability to deliver the political goods described above) than the current bi-polar model:

Weak States contain ethnic, religious, linguistic, or other tensions that limit or decrease its ability to deliver political goods. These conflicts are on the edge of exploding into open conflict. GDP per capita has fallen or falling. Interestingly, the privatization of education and health care is a sign of state weakness. Corruption is common. The rule of law is weakly applied. Despots rule. Examples: Iraq (under Saddam), Belarus, N. Korea, and Libya.

Failed States provide very little political goods. The forfeit the distribution of political goods to warlords or non-state actors (ie. Hamas). Security is non-existant in all but the major cities (if that). The economic infrastructure has failed, the health care system is in decline, and the educational system is in shambles. GDP per capita is in a precipitous decline, inflation soars, corruption flourishes, and food shortages are frequent. Failed states often have a very rich minority that take advantage of the failed system. Examples: Nepal, Congo, Liberia, Afghanistan, and Iraq.

Collapsed States are failed states with a complete vacuum of authority (rare). They are black holes in regards to all indicators of health. Collapsed states can become failed states with intervention. Historical examples: Lebanon, Tajikistan, and Sierra Leone.

How to prevent the decline of nation-states
Obviously, it is much less expensive to stop a state from failing than to reconstruct it after it has failed or collapsed. Western policy is almost exclusively focused on failed states within strategic regions at the expense of weak states on the brink of failure. For example: the money spent on Iraq and Afghanistan is two orders of magnitude more than the US spends on help for weak states. Those efforts aimed at weak states have been mostly ceded to financial institutions (banks and funds) that either focus their efforts on either profit (returns from loans) or export expansion (for western producers, particularly agriculture). If we ever do get to a failure prevention strategy, the effort should focus on the following:

Rewards for democratization. Repression is often a sign of impending collapse (although it can stabilize a state in a weak state for extended periods -- Iraq, Iran, N. Korea, and others are examples). A system of rewards and punishment that leads a state to less repression can help to prevent state failure.

Rapid economic decline. Financial shocks can cause a state to fail (ie. a rapid oil price increase). Rapid intervention to alleviate this economic situation can help a weak state survive failure. This process needs to be formalized.

Security. Timely security support can help a state from losing control of its borders and prevent the rise of non-state actors. A good way to accomplish this is to fund an organization that can contract private security forces (from an ala carte menu of firms with different capabilities) for service in a weak state with control problems.

Wednesday, 14 April 2004

A death-march is a term used in the software development world for projects that fail despite extreme sacrifice (time, effort, money, health, etc.) by the project teams. Terrorism as we know is a death-march project. The reason is that traditional terrorism suffers diminishing returns the more that it is used. The reasons for this include:

Desensitization of the audience. Traditional terrorism, like violent crime, will increasingly become part of the fabric of daily life for targeted populations. Over time, people will "tune it out" and return to the travails of daily life.

Declining media coverage. In response to a decline in interest among targeted populations, the media will relegate terrorist incidents to the back-page. This is already going on in regards to casualties in Iraq. The operative term in news is NEW.

A lack of "evergreen" damage. Outside of the psychological impact (which declines due to overuse) of terrorist attacks, there is little lasting damage to the target. Occasionally, there is collateral damage to economic infrastructure or systems. However, this type of damage takes the backseat in planning to a "high body count."

To compensate for this decline in effectiveness, terrorists have developed a series of work-arounds. These include:

Increasing lethality (increasing scale). A general trend in terrorism, since the seventies, has been an increase in the median lethality per attack. Higher body-counts compensate for the desensitization of target populations and generate the needed media coverage. However, the increasing proliferation of groups (via the bin Laden and Hamas VC/incubator system) may deplete the "currency of scale" through more numerous and less well planned small attacks.

A wider venue (increasing breadth). Terrorists have extended their reach to new geographies. The attack on Spain (and planned attacks on the UK) as well as the hostage crisis in Iraq (Japan, China, Russia, Germany, etc.) has served to increase the psychological impact of terrorism. New "start-ups" will serve as a way to quickly exploit this "opportunity space" and as a result, these attacks will suffer the same diminishing returns they do in the traditional venues.

Selective targets with political potential (increasing focus). Attacks that have political consequence -- during the final days of an election or during a symbolic holiday for example -- have proven effective. However, the political learning curve is often quick.

These work-arounds to the quicksand of diminishing returns won't work in the long-run. At a point in the near future, traditional terrorism will fail to offer the means necessary to terrorize. It will hit the limits of conventional munitions and techniques to continue scale increases. It will also run out of new (breadth and focus) targets to attack. At that point, terrorists will either innovaten (enter rational decision making) or continue on a grinding death-march using traditional methods (an effort that leads to dissolution). Here is what this means:

One path of innovation will be to acquire a nuclear weapon. However, it is unlikely that terrorists will gain access to nuclear weapons in any relevant time period. Nuclear weapons, despite the pulp fiction to the contrary, are difficult to obtain and deploy. So, its likely that the nuclear path is a dead-end.

Another, more viable terrorist innovation will be to adapt tactics to provide evergreen returns on effort. This next generation terrorism will consist of sustained attacks on systems. The evergreen return: dislocation and economic damage. These new methods will serve to bridge the gap between conventional terror and nuclear terror.

A new emphasis on systems disruption will catch existing counter-terrorist forces unaware and unprepared. These security forces are constrained by historical precedent without reference to the major changes going on in the nature of the terrorist forces arrayed against us.

Saturday, 03 April 2004

Interesting items from the life Osama bin Laden from the perspective of understanding his capabilites as a military commander and organizer:

Osama is the son of an entrepreneur. His father went from being a poor imigrant (Yemeni) porter to the head of the largest construction company in Saudi Arabia. Children of entrepreneurs are extremely likely to be entrepreneurs themselves. In this case he built a private guerrilla/terrorist movement. An example of his entrepreneurial spirit: in 1986 he decided to build his own mujahedeen force in Afghanistan. He built more than 6 camps and developed his own front in the war against the Russians. He has also established an "incubator style" VC operation for terrorist groups (structure, technology, money, expertise, and intelligence).

Osama was born and grew up in Jeddah. Jiddah is a stones throw from Mecca (Makkah) and in the Hejaz (the birthplace of the Arab revolt against Turkish rule). This may mean that the tactics/strategy developed by T.E. Lawrence (of Arabia) for this revolt may play an important part of his military thinking. By the way, Lawrence perfected the art of destroying trains. Lawrence also used psychological terror: he warned Turkish troops in garrisons he was about to attack that his Arab forces would lose control and slaughter all defenders unless they surrendered.

He was prescient in predicting the invasion of Kuwait (and potentially Saudi Arabia) by Saddam, and publicly spoke about it (which embarrassed the Saudi government) in 1989. When the invasion did occur, he asked the Saudi government to allow him to mount the defense of the Kingdom with his mujahedeen. His plan was rejected in favor of American intervention. In this he shows that he saw his forces as "competitive" to western militaries (fresh off the success in Afghanistan). He recognized the long lines of communication needed for an Iraqi invasion of Saudi Arabia would have been extremely vulnerable to mujahedeen tactics.

Osama lost his Saudi citizenship in 1994. He is now a man without a country. In 1996 he declared war against the US in a 12-page document. These developments put Osama in opposition to all nation-states.

He wisely does not allow any electronic devices (including a watch) near his person because it may be used to target him. He is widely read and always is followed by his intelligence data team (good intelligence is an exceedingly important aspect of terrorist operations). This indicates a tendency towards a "scientific" management style. He is not a hands on micromanager although he directly led attacks against Russian forces earlier in his career.

Friday, 02 April 2004

The first effective use of conventional forces against guerrillas was Alexander the Great's Scythian campaign. As a military force, the Scythians were very much like terrorists. Here are some points of comparison:

They were nomads, with no fixed location or base.

They had no set organizational structure (hierarchy) that could be leveraged through a decapitation attack (as Alexander used against the Persians by attacking Darius).

Their force was self-contained and therefore didn't present any vulnerable lines of communication or material.

The Scythians were very mobile horse archers that could could attack from a distance, swarm on vulnerabilities when exposed, and flee to safety when engaged.

The totality of these strengths allowed the Scythians to defeat all conventional enemies sent against them. Alexander changed this. Here's how. Alexander recognized that the only way to defeat the enemy was to trap the enemy in a situation where their mobility was negated and they were forced to engage. There are two ways to do this. The first way is to trap the enemy on ground that prevented mobility. However, the Scythians were unlikely to fall into this trap.

The second solution was to create a situation where the enemy was trapped by the maneuver of forces in a way that restricted mobility. Alexander chose this solution. To do this, Alexander sent a small force of vulnerable calvary forward against the Scythians. The Scythians quickly began to swarm on this small force by riding around them in a circle and pelting them with arrows. While this "bait" was engaged, he moved forward light missile infantry as a screen to his maneuvers.

Behind the screen, he moved his remaining calvary in three columns (left wing, center, and right wing) to positions that would allow him to trap a segment of the encircling Scythians between the calvary "bait" and his main force. Once positioned, he charged forward, springing the trap. A large segment of the Scythians were thereby trapped, where they were either cut down or captured.

The result of this action quickly resulted in the capitulation of the Scythians. The reason was that their tactics had been defeated. Without an ability to attack with success, they were without recourse.

Here are the lessons that we can derive from this:

Guerrilla and terrorist forces have a tendency to form into semi-conventional targets when presented with an opportunity free from threat of attack.

Vulnerability attracts guerrilla and terrorist swarming attacks which thereby presents opportunity. In cyberwarfare, this is called a honeypot.

The main conventional thrust should be held back until the enemy is surrounded with overwhelming force. Extreme efforts should be made to screen this maneuver and to limit attacks on the enemy until the vital moment.

Compare this to the way we are fought the Iraq and Afghanistan campaigns. In Afghanistan, we broke apart enemy forces (in large training camps of conventional organization) from a distance with indecisive force (air power). Further, we attacked enemy forces in fortifications that restricted mobility (Tora Bora) with insufficient ground forces (special operations forces) and allowed them to escape. In Iraq, we continue to pacify the whole of the country which prevents the guerrillas/terrorists from forming into larger semi-conventional formations (organizations with middle management of 350 people or greater) that can be engaged. In both locations, were are loathe to create vulnerabilities that may be used as traps (due to the fear of casualties). In all locations (across the globe), we are quick to disrupt terrorist networks and are likely to decapitate leadership when the opportunity presents itself. This is done even when terrorists operate in permissive environments (where police presence is in place).

Taken in their entirety, the tactics we have used are indecisive. Alexander points to a potential alternative.

Wednesday, 17 March 2004

Many people assume, wrongly, that terrorists are poor and uneducated. That is incorrect. Scott Atran (PDF: Who wants to be a Martyr?) has provided a high quality argument that terrorists are typically more well off and better educated than surrounding populations.

Education: "Officials with the Army Defense Intelligence Agency who have interrogated Saudi-born members of Al Qaeda being detained at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, have told me that these fundamentalists, especially those in leadership positions, are often educated above reasonable employment level; a surprising number have graduate degrees and come from high-status families."

Poverty: "The Princeton economist Alan Krueger and others released a study in 2002 comparing Lebanese Hezbollah militants who died in violent action to other Lebanese of the same age group. He found that the Hezbollah members were less likely to come from poor homes and more likely to have a secondary school education."

The end result is that: "This allows terrorist agents to choose recruits who are intelligent, psychologically balanced and socially poised. Candidates who mostly want virgins in paradise or money for their families are weeded out. Those selected show patience and the ability to plan and execute in subtle, quiet ways that don't draw attention."

According to Atran, the driving factor in terrorist recruitment is religious intensity.

On Brave New War

G. Gordon Liddy Show (radio)...this is a seminal book in the truest sense of the term.. way ahead of the curve... go out and buy it right now -- G. Gordon Liddy

City JournalRobb has written an important book that every policymaker should read -- Glenn Reynolds (Instapundit)

Small Wars JournalWithout reservation Brave New War is for professional students of irregular warfare and for any citizen who wants to understand emerging trends and the dark potential of 4GW -- Frank Hoffman

Scripps Howard News ServiceA brilliant new book published by terrorism expert John Robb, titled "Brave New War," hit stores last month with virtually no fanfare. It deserves both significant attention and vigorous debate... - Thomas P.M. Barnett

Chet Richards DNIJohn has produced an important book that should help jar the United States and other legacy states out of their Cold War mindset. You can read it in a couple of hours – so you should read it twice...

Washington Times / UPIRobb correctly finds the antidote to 4GW not in Soviet-style state structures such as the Department of Homeland Security, but in decentralization -- William Lind (the father of 4th generation warfare).

Robert PatersonHaving painted a crystal clear picture of how a war of networks is playing out, he comes to an astonishing conclusion that I hope he fills out in his next book.

The Daily DishJohn Robb of Global Guerrillas has written the most important book of the year, Brave New War. - Daily Dish (The Atlantic)

Simulated LaughterWell-written. Brave New War reads more like an action novel than a ponderous policy book. - Adam Elkus

FutureJackedGo buy a copy of this book. Now. If you are low on cash, skip a few lunches and save up the cash. It is worth it. - Michael Flagg

ZenPunditThe second audience is composed of everyone else. Brave New War is simply going to blow them away. - Mark Safranski

Haft of the SpearThere aren’t a lot of books that make me recall a 12-year-old self aching for the next issue of The Invincible Iron Man to hit the shelves. Well done.
- Michael Tanji

Ed ConeHis book posits an Army of Davids -- with the traditional nation state in the role of Goliath. - Ed Cone (Ziff Davis)

Shloky.comThis is the first real text on next generation warfare designed for the general population and it sets the bar high for following acts. It is smart, it is a short read, and it will change your thinking. - Shlok Vaidya

Politics in the ZerosI suggest this is something Lefties need to start thinking about now, as that decentralized world is coming. - Bob Morris